


The Arsonists' Dilemma

by xiakha



Category: Kill Six Billion Demons (Webcomic), Kill Six Billion Demons: Ring of Power OCT
Genre: Do you know how terrifying it is to be posting fanfic of (technically) fanwork of a webcomic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21956041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiakha/pseuds/xiakha
Summary: Alt title: Emerald Leptophis Mk2 Infiltrates Zenith AbattoirPost Round 5, Fei's pretty much bedridden, so obviously this is when some paperwork pusher from EASF HQ comes to harass her
Relationships: Major Li Feitian & Jade Rabbit Mk4 Pierces the Void and Grasps the Heavens
Kudos: 10





	The Arsonists' Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

> This was probably a weird first choice for a submission, huh  
> I also haven't slept yet so I may regret this after a sleep  
> Merry Crhimbus, Felix!

As she comes to, Fei thinks she hears thunder in the sky.

She doesn't gasp violently and bodily thrust herself upright, gun drawn from beneath her pillow. Gun's not there, neither is her-- Rabbit's hand. Her right arm ends now in a neatly bandaged stump strapped to the bed in the periphery of her vision. Gasping would be too much trouble anyway; it hurts to breathe through the slightly suffocating bandaging across her torso, never mind the tightness in her chest. And she's got no will to lift herself up. Besides the exhaustion and the pulsing headache, she would have to fight through the restraints anyhow, and it probably would be a bad idea to jostle the blood transfusion mix drip they have running into her one remaining mostly intact limb. Lucky lefty. There's a bandage over the electrical burn on her upper arm where--  
When--

"I see you are awake, Major Li."  
New stimuli refocuses the few brain cells she has currently online, and it's only now that she recognizes the dull back-of-a-spoon-sheen of morphsynth on her senses. At least her ears still work. That's English she makes out over the low roar in the distance, not translated stuff over one of those instant translators, genuine English. As her brain puts together a response, her tongue is a wad of unprocessed cotton in a mouth full of sand.  
"How... long?"  
"You lost consciousness from blood loss fourteen hours, twenty-three minutes ago, while in transport. Currently, you are in the medical ward of an EASF safe house nearby the Arena, or at least, it was a safe house. We are tearing the place down, and we will extricate as soon as you are checked to be moved." The voice, clarion and slightly cloying, is familiarly unfamiliar and comes from someone sitting somewhere to Fei's left. Putting in the tremendous effort needed to turn her head towards the stabbing pain in her eye socket, she can almost make out who it is through the backlit medical curtain. An asshole, Fei concludes, you'd have to be if you purposefully or incidentally sat to the left of someone with such a large swath of bandages on the left side of her face.

"Who are...?"  
"I am a counselor your direct supervisors have brought in to re-evaluate your fitness and ability to carry out your duties, Major. You may call me Eliza."  
Shit. Well it was really only a matter of time before consequences finally caught up to her and her actions. Hell, EASF launched _Tranquility_ across time and space basically on her mark. Some beancounter back on Earth probably needed to pile the shit on someone. But Rabbit's got her ba-- Rab-- Rabbit's--

"Shall we begin, Major Li?"  
Right. Evaluation. Her voice is a buoy that keeps Fei afloat in the sea of molasses that is her brain. The brain cells that she has up and running are desperately attempting to rouse the sleeping proletariat.  
"What's... up with ...restraints?"  
"It was worried by several medical professionals that the trauma you sustained would provoke a violent reaction if or when you returned to consciousness that would prove detrimental to your already fragile health. I believe it was said that you would try to drag yourself bodily out of the ward on the one good limb you have left."  
"...Sounds like Aldrin."  
"Also, you are under review for a court-martial."  
"Definitely Aldrin."  
"That aside, ready to begin, Major Li?"  
"First of all, Clipboards, I'm perfectly fit to serve."  
"Really. With all due respect, Major Li, you've spent the last three months largely AWOL, to which our away team could only report that you had barhopped your way across Throne, then entered into a bloodsport tournament without any prior permission or allocation of munitions or materials, then proceeded to endanger yourself, your partner, and EASF property in often vain attempts to save people from said bloodsport tournament, and finally you have destroyed EASF proper--"  
"STOP CALLING THEM THAT. THEIR NAME IS RABBIT." Fei tastes salt and iron and tries to spit at the seated figure, staining the curtain with a light spray of red.  
The rumbling grows louder, not so distant as before. It reminds Fei of reentry and burning down the dark.  
"...Jade Rabbit Mk4 acted on their own volition, that much is certain from the black box data we were able to collect from the scene. And that is a separate issue we will address, potentially as part of judgments on your ability to return to active duty. I am speaking of the chassis that they were housed in, the engineering that integrated the bound Devil with Earth technology, the highly sensitive and classified specifics of that now litters the stones of that Arena. I apologize for my ambiguity."  
"Rabb--Rabbit's-- They're---"  
"It is precisely for the mission critical nature of your directives that we need to make sure that you will not jeopardize all that you have been working for over your grief. Major, trust me, I am on your side in this."  
Fei is suddenly very very tired, her head thuds on the pillow more quietly and less defiantly than she hopes for.  
"Let's get this shit show over with."

"I have a thought experiment for you, Fei."  
"Oh-ho? All right, Rabbit, lay it on me."  
They were on a spacewalk, some routine maintenance of the station in the Sea of Tranquility, setting up for a few geological surveys. In other words, boring, boring, boring. Fei hadn't shut up about it for the last half hour.  
"Are you aware of the Prisoners' Dilemma?"  
"Yeah, that's fairly standard. Two prisoners that can choose to keep mum or 'fess up. If they both keep mum, they both serve minimal sentence, if one 'fesses up and the other keeps mum, the first goes free, the other serves maximum sentence. If they both 'fess up, they both serve sentences of a middling length. They had you run simulations on that or something?" Fei kicked a rock and watched it glide unearthly far.  
"Indeed, and over thousands and thousands of sims, reciprocity leads to the optimal outcomes more often than not."  
"So, what's up?"  
"Well, it occurs to me that the simulations miss the point of the original dilemma. The prisoners don't have thousands of attempts to get it right. In fact, despite the specification that they cannot communicate, patterns of behavior that appear as one analyzes these multiple trials clearly could count as communication. So to stay true to the original query, they have but _one_ attempt."  
Fei chuckled, ah, classic Rabbit. Splitting hairs. Or hares, as it were, "I know at least one professor emeritus who you would probably make cry, but go on."  
"So, in this one attempt, what would you choose to do, Fei?"

"Major Li, please try to focus."  
The low roar is even louder now, and voices, indistinct but still definitely voices rising and falling, ring out in between the clattering bass of destruction and violence. A riot?  
"We would attempt this re-evaluation later, but there's no time. You will forfeit the round in nine hours, fifteen minutes."  
"What, are you going to push me into the arena in a gurney?"  
"Hopefully it will not come to that." Eliza says in a tone that makes it clear that they will, if it comes to that.  
"Okay, okay. Uh, yes. Why do I fight?"  
She fights because she grew up on propaganda reels of warrior-astronaut-poet Neil Armstrong fending off moon devils. She fights because she cried when CMSgt Sally "Slayer" Ride sacrificed her life to help the other astronauts safely eject as the shuttle disintegrated. She fights because instead of being thrown out of Academy for insubordination, she was handpicked by her commanding officer for a grueling second chance. She fights because Aldrin looked at her application and reportedly laughed but accepted her on his ship anyway. She fights because she and Rabbit--  
Rabbit.  
"Sorry?"  
Fei clears her throat, "Habit, I said habit."  
"You fight out of habit?"  
"I realize that this is a calibration question that you have to ask, Survey Says, but come on, my record should speak for itself."  
"Your record nails you as Commander Zheng and General Aldrin's pet project, with more halted or dismissed court-martial inquiries than I've ever seen on any commissioned officer's file." Eliza flicks at the folder she has on her lap. The full flick-through is distressingly lengthy. "Give me a reason, maybe two, so I can return to EASF and not have you dragged back to Earth in chains, never mind your current restraints, or at least reasons good enough that Aldrin will not be brought down with you."  
"I fight because I've got to. Because everyone back home is counting on me." She feels like her tongue is filling her mouth, like she's trying to speak after eating peanut butter from the bottle. Who is that generic gung-ho-ness supposed to impress anyway?  
It sounds so much worse, Fei decides, when it isn't said in the middle of a heated ping pong match.  
"Yes, you and everyone else on the _Tranquility_. There are several other astronauts aboard that have similar credentials to yours but have exponentially less liability. Why do you think yourself as special?"  
She had said it herself, didn't she? They probably got it off the black box data.  
_Aldrin can always find another soldier--_

"Wait, actually," she said, spinning a multitool lazily on a finger, "Do I know this other arsonist? We're both trying to burn this building down, right? So there's gotta be some reason for it, could be a shared political objective."  
They had moved on to a variant of the original, the Arsonists' Dilemma. The set up was largely the same, two arsonists, both caught trying to case the same place to burn, both asked separately to rat out the other. The stakes were different though. In this version, because the arson in question would likely be committed as long as one of the two arsonists walked free, the confess/keep quiet combo was the best scenario for the arsonists, not both keeping quiet. This way, sheer selflessness was no longer necessarily the optimal play. Still, Fei persisted, until now.  
"Would that change your answer?"  
"Yeah. I'd always rat out the other person then."  
Rabbit didn't have traditional eyes or a mouth, but if they did, they would be blinking and left agape respectively.  
"Look, hear me out. The two outcomes would be a) I walk free and commit arson, or b) we both land in jail for an extended period of time and we both figure out how to escape. Six months isn't ideal because it's more than enough time for the building I'm trying to burn to step up security, and not enough time to learn enough about the prison to hatch an escape plan with. Besides, after accomplishing my main objective, the first thing I'd do would be getting my fellow arsonist out of jail."  
"Intriguing. I'll be sure to consider this later."  
"I haven't been helping you cheat for your tests, right?"  
"No, the Arsonist's Dilemma is something I just concocted in an attempt to make you say something different instead of rattling off the same argument yet again. But it's still something good to know."  
"Oh?"  
"You spend so much time picking fights and getting yourself burned, but even in all of that self-immolation, you at least believe you can count on others, and others should count on you."  
"Are you saying I should rely on you more, Rabbit? Even more than I already do?"  
There was an electronic buzz that was Rabbit's closest approximation at a sigh. They were getting better at doing them. "Sure, that too."

"I trust you Fei."  
"Rabbit, what's with you? You're not the type to get sentimental."  
"Trust in me, just as I trust in you."  
"Really, this is entirely out of character, if I recall, you didn't--"

"Ah," Fei says, "I get it now."

Whatever is going on outside is even closer now. The door rattles on its hinges with the more percussive blows, and the shouting voices are nearly comprehensible, words just on the edge of understanding. Fei catches glimpses of lab coats and body armor running in the frosted window in the doorway. No one stops to tell them that they are evacuating. There's nothing more that Fei wants than to evacuate, to get away from this awful lady. Maybe a drink.  
"Do you think these rioters will bring me a drink?"  
"Sorry?"  
"Listen, Pew Research, you're here and I'm here because you want to make sure that I'm whole and hale enough to continue the mission, right? All of your empty threats and posturing is to get an evaluation of how ready I am to continue the mission, to make sure I'm okay, right?"  
"...Correct."  
"I'm not okay. I'm not whole or hale. I-- Rabbit's--"  
Eliza's voice takes on perhaps a sympathetic tone, "The trauma of losing a partner that someone has worked so closely with has broken soldiers stronger than you, Major Li. It is why these evaluations are necess--"  
"Rabbit's still here."  
"...People take loss in different ways but pure denial is--"  
"No no, Rabbit is gone, but they're still _here_." Fei taps her chest with her thumb, restraint loosely hanging from her forearm. "It may have only been for a short while, but I saw the world as they saw it and they saw the world as I saw it. Literally, actually since they were my eye, but that's not the point. We were completing each other's damn sentences for crying out loud."  
The riot breaches the safe house. Sustained gunfire somehow doesn't drown out all of the shouting and violence, and it certainly doesn't drown out Fei.  
"After I complete my main objective, I'll be back for Rabbit. I've gotta spring my partner from jail, after all."  
Eliza flips through her papers, a little more frantically than she means to, "What are you talking about?"  
"A little memory Rabbit dug up. Their little way of pointing me in the right direction, I guess. Now, if you'll excuse me," Fei lifts a bottle of beer where a restraint once was in a right hand made out of pure energy, her head wreathed in fire that rests above her brow. She takes a swig. "I believe that's my ticket out of here."  
Rabbit bursts into the room, tearing the door and much of the wall away. They're not red anymore, but Fei probably would have made the reference if she were healthier. A merry bunch of rioters swarm over to Eliza.  
"I'm not special. I'm just another air force brat who wanted to see a little bit more of the universe. But I've gotta honor what Rabbit saw in me, and I'm going to see this through."

The rioters pull the pencil pusher out of the room, leaving the devil mech suit alone with Fei in a crumbling dream.  
"Took you long enough."  
"You know me, Rabbit. I don't think as fast while sober." Fei thinks she hears an appreciative chuckle.  
"Do you know how you're going to figure this out?"  
"No. Quite frankly, not at all." She smiles, "But I'm going to figure it out anyway."  
"Sounds like a plan."  
"...Rabbit."  
"I know."  
"We were supposed to fall together."  
"I know. I'm sorry."  
"I'll be coming for you. Mark my words."  
"You do realize you're talking to your memory of--" Rabbit pauses and thinks better of it, "I'll be waiting for you, up ahead."

General Aldrin pinches the bridge of his nose at the paperwork he's doing. He doesn't look up when golden light flashes at his door.  
"Come in, Lepto."  
The gold hologram phases into the room and gives a smart salute, "The subject kicked me out, sir."  
Aldrin glances at his computer's clock, "...It's been all of fifteen minutes."  
"With all due respect, her subconscious started fighting me from the very beginning. She consciously figured it out by the end."  
He sighs and turns his chair around to hide his smile, "Very well, what do you have to report?"  
"Major Li Feitian is hurting, deeply hurting. I highly recommend psychiatric care if she survives, but she remains extremely willful."  
"Noted. So what do you recommend?"  
"It depends, General, would you like me to give you my actual advice, or are you looking for confirmation to what you have already decided?"  
Aldrin sighs again, this time without a poorly disguised smile, "Very well, we'll ground her, whether I like it or not."  
"On the contrary, sir, I don't think we should."  
"Pardon?"  
Emerald Leptophis shrugs and readjusts their holographic glasses, "Rather, I don't think we can. You are going to tell her that Jade Rabbit contacted Tranquility, right?"  
"Only if it won't cause more harm than good to her."  
"Inconclusive if it will, but she has already pretty much figured it out. If or once she hears the message, we will not be able to contain her even if we ground her. Nothing short of death will stop her. And even then," they look over their glasses at Aldrin with a rather pointed look, "I'm not sure."  
"Thank you for your report, Lepto. You may return to your normal duties."  
Emerald Leptophis salutes again before phasing through the floor.  
Aldrin picks up the phone on his desk, "Patch me through to Grissom. I want to know how much progress we've made on our contingency plan."

In the medical ward, a single empty bottle of beer rolls under Fei's bed. She stirs slightly, but stays asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, but I couldn't actually write something that was sad all the way through. This story ends in much more familiar territory for me.
> 
> Now I Am an Arsonist looped 85 times while writing  
> Major scenes of TTGL movies rewatched and referenced ...poorly


End file.
